Research & Publications

Committee For Comparative Literature

Our mission is to encourage and support interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies in the Arts & Humanities with special emphasis on language and literary studies. The Committee for Comparative Literature is comprised of faculty from the Department of English and the Department of Languages & Literatures. Annual events include the Fall Forum, Winter Workshop, and Spring Seminar, as well as additional colloquia, lectures, literary readings, roundtables, and symposia.

Upcoming Events

Watch this space for news on the upcoming Fall Forum on the theme of monsters and literature!

Fall 2015:The 8th Annual Lecture and Faculty Research Roundtable welcomed Dr. Alisa Freedman (Japanese, University of Oregon), who discussed her book Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road.

Winter Workshop 2015:The 7th Annual Faculty Roundtable & Lecture featured Susan Bernofsky, director of Literary Translation in the MFA Writing Program at the Columbia University School of the Arts.

Spring Seminar 2014: This 2nd Annual seminar featured award-winning author and Professor of Classics, Dr. Reviel Netz of Stanford University, who presented his lecture on the topic "Ludic Proof: Mathematics as Narrative" on 3 April 2014.

Winter Workshop 2014: The 6th Annual Lecture and Faculty Research Roundtable welcomed Dr. Thomas G. Pavel, Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor in Romance Languages and Literature, Comparative Literature, and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago to discuss his recent book, The Lives of the Novel: A History (Princeton UP, 2013). 16-17 February 2014.

Spring Seminar 2013: The inaugural seminar featured Dr. Marie-Laure Ryan, internationally renowned narrative theorist, formerly of CU-Boulder and a Gutenberg Fellow at Johannes Gutenberg University (Germany). She presented her work on "Narrative Cartographies: Mapping the Literary Imagination" 30 May 2013.

Winter Workshop 2013: "Translation and the Art of Fiction" with award-winning American author and translator Nathan Englander. 27 February 2013.

Fall 2012: 5th Annual Lecture and Faculty Research Roundtable with Dr. Walter Andrews, Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Literature at the University of Washington-Seattle. Dr. Andrews presented two lectures, "Apples and Oranges or, Seeking Comparative Sex, Love, and Literature Between Ottomans and Europeans" and "The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society." 14-15 November 2012.

Spring 2010: 3rd Annual Lecture and Faculty Research Roundtable with Dr. Thomas Laqueur of the University of California Berkeley who lectured on the topic "Cremation and the Work of the Dead in the Nineteenth Century." May 2010.